我国区域政策执行中的"逆向软预算约束"现象——以X省"山区开发"为例的拓展分析

1994年实行分税制以来,我国政府采取了"中央财政集权"式区域政策,通过加大政府间转移支付力度来调控区域发展差距.实践证明,这个政策充分发挥了高层政府的调控功能,取得了较大成绩.对X省"山区开发"政策的案例研究表明,这种区域政策在具体执行中也普遍存在"上有政策,下有对策"现象,其主要表现是出现了不少"钓鱼项目"和"半拉子工程".究其原因,这和转型时期我国政府内部出现的"逆向软预算约束"行为密切关联.通过引入"部门内生交易费用"概念,文章对我国区域政策执行中出现的"逆向软预算约束"问题进行了拓展分析,认为高层政府职能部门内生的部门交易费用,是区域政策执行中发生"逆向软预算约束"现象的主要根源.

A Study on Inverted Soft Budget Constraint in the Process of Implementation of China's Regional Policy

Chinese central government has adopted a new kind of regional policy instrument characterized by centralized revenue collection and centralized fiscal transfer since it initiated the experiment of a tax-assignment system in 1994 in order to narrow regional gap. It proves that the higher level governments have made obvious progress in macro-controlling regional development. However, through a case study of X province's "shanqu kaifa" policy, this essay reveals that the phenomenon of "higher level governments constructing a policy, but lower governments destructing it" appears in the process of implementing policy. Many "Diaoyu" and "Banlazi" projects in the practice of public administration are the consequences of this phenomenon. With the introduction of theory of inverted soft budget constraint, it is concluded that the core reason for policy failure is concerned with the behavior of inverted soft budget constraint between higher and lower level governments in China's transitional era. Employing the concept of transaction cost between governmental authorities, this paper tries to give a more comprehensive interpretation to the behavior of inverted soft budget constraint. It argues that the transaction cost between governmental authorities deprived from higher level governmental departments is the main cause for inverted soft budget constraint in the course of regional policy implementation.